There have often been headlines about WoW in recent weeks that deal with various adjustments in the game; Adjustments of an inclusive nature. What was missing, however, was always a clear statement from the WoW team. There are now – and the promise that character looks and cosmetic items are not touched.
In the article entitled “Evolution of creative content in World of Warcraft”, the WoW makers comment for the first time on the many small visual adjustments that have been made on the WoW Patch 9.1.5 test server in recent weeks. have taken place, and which left many a player at a loss.
Pictures of partially completely desexualized murals and item icons made the rounds, changed NPC and success names, now also the exchange of NPC groups in instances that seemed to be completely okay to date – at least the ones in Karazhan, because it’s been around for 14 years and even in a new edition of the raid as a dungeon.
We want our banter to be inclusive”
This is one of the two important statements that the members of the WoW team have now let themselves be carried away. Jokes should be inclusive and maybe not quite as offensively flippant and, above all, not blatantly sexualized. That’s why patch 9.1.5 introduces an Incubus demon, among other things, so that there is an adequate counter-demon to the succubus.
The second statement from the WoW creators, which brings a sigh of relief to players who are a big fan of their character looks: “We also want players to be able to express themselves through their characters, so we have no plans to change existing player looks or cosmetic items. Rather, we want to make sure we offer players a wide variety of ways to express themselves.”
The evolution of creative content in World of Warcraft
In the past few weeks, artists and writers on the WoW team have been revamping some old quests, graphic assets, names, and dialogue that were outdated and didn’t fit with our values as a team. These overhauls are a relatively small part of a larger, company-wide effort to improve the WoW team and Blizzard as a whole, but they’re important to us as developers.
In early August, we established internal channels for the WoW team to share feedback on content that no longer reflects who we are as a team today. During this time, we’ve also collected quite a bit of player feedback on almost every aspect of the game. Player feedback has resulted in many game improvements that we are working on in patch 9.1.5. With our internal feedback, we were able to find game content that didn’t fit our goal of an inclusive and welcoming game world.
In a game made up of thousands of graphics elements and millions of words of text, it’s clear that these overhauls mean very few changes overall. Nonetheless, we believe these changes are important. World of Warcraft (buy now) should evolve over time. Every day new players from different walks of life and corners of the world experience our game content for the first time. As a team, we want the world you see to reflect our talents and principles.
Goofy jokes and the occasional adult innuendo are a part of WoW and arguably always will be. Nevertheless, we want to make sure that the elements of this world do not act as a deterrent to any players. In short, we want our jokes to be inclusive and not hurt anyone.
Sometimes when deciding whether to customize content, there may be circumstances that make our decision difficult. For example, some graphics in our world are reused throughout the game. To ensure that there are no instances where this graphic is viewed in a way that could be construed as disrespectful, in some cases we may choose to replace certain elements entirely. We care about Azeroth being the best place for everyone, and we will continue to improve decision-making in these cases.
We also want players to be able to express themselves through their characters. As such, we have no plans to change existing player looks or cosmetic items. Much more, we want to make sure that we offer players a wide variety of ways to express themselves. We do this work alongside the development of new content and features. You’ll see more of this coming soon in 9.1.5 and future updates, possibly also in WoW Classic. An example of an improvement after 9.1.5 is the creation of an Incubus demon that we can place in locations where succubuses currently spawn. The Incubus is also said to be a glyph option for Warlocks when summoning this type of demon.
As WoW continues to grow and evolve, we will continue to discuss, review, and act on this type of feedback. As always, we are immensely grateful for your opinions and hope you will continue to share them with us.
– The World of Warcraft team
Suse says (attention, comment!)
Dear WoW Devs! I understand that after navigating a very rough sea you might prefer to head into shallower waters; the accusations of discrimination and misogyny against the WoW team didn’t come from anywhere. One thing that bugs me a little bit about your in-game content adjustments is that you now say that “they were outdated and didn’t fit with our values as a team”. um I understand. Yes. But what were your values over the past ten years as the whole world grappled with movements like #MeToo?
You also write: “In early August, we established internal channels for the WoW team to share feedback on content that no longer reflects who we are as a team today.” I remember a very lengthy discussion about a quest involving torturing a prisoner in Borean Tundra. Only after discussions did you, dear WoW makers, change the quest. Did this quest reflect who you were as a team back then?
The game is filled with content that is somehow not okay today – and often wasn’t then either. But now they’re not “okay okay” at all? Who determines that? People who made the game 16 years ago? Certainly not. But those would be the people who should see that things from then aren’t okay anymore, right?
It looks like this to me. With all the adjustments, only changes are made that alienate the game for me, as a veteran of the European beta. And maybe that’s the worst stumbling block in MMO development: the game has to be constantly evolving and can’t just be a child of its time, unlike a movie or a book. By the way, what makes bare skin on player characters less objectionable than bare skin on a painting on the wall or on an NPC? Because you have to see that too, dear WoW creators: you not only portray female characters in an exaggeratedly sexualized way, but also men. In all honesty, don’t we have a kind of balance again?
What is WoW Classic?
World of Warcraft Classic is a true recreation of the original WoW as you know it from 2006. All parts of the game – from combat mechanics and talent trees to character models and zones – have been recreated, contributing to the authentic experience.
Getting Started
All players with an active World of Warcraft subscription or game time on their accounts have access toWoW Classic at no additional cost.
- Open the Blizzard Battle.net Desktop App and select World of Warcraft from the menu.
- Select World of Warcraft Classic from the Version menu. If you have more than one World of Warcraft account, you’ll see a second Account drop-down list. In this column, select the active account you want to play with.
- Click the Install button. The progress bar will tell you when your game is ready to play.
- Click the Play button when the installation is complete.
You will need to select the realm you want to play on from several different realm types. Make sure you choose the same realm as your friends – in World of Warcraft Classic, you can only group with characters that are on the same realm as you!
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